Fabrication and characterization of optofluidic flexible meniscus–biconvex lens system

This paper presents a novel optofluidic flexible meniscus–biconvex lens system. Using the developed flexible lens module with uniquely quadratic-curve-dominated meniscus and biconvex lenses, the focus of the lens system can be tuned by varying the applied fluid pressures. The innovative lens fabrication method is described and the manufactured lenses with different processing parameters are characterized. These curved flexible lenses display non-spherical shapes under exertion of uniformly distributed liquid pressures.Through the experimental setup of assembled optical lens system with a fluid controlled mechanism, the resulting images are captured. A change in focal length of five times (19.1–80.8 cm) is demonstrated and the focal length shows a quadratic relation to the applied pressure (0–5 kPa). Besides, the distortion can be kept below 5% and relative illumination remains above 0.74 through the analysis of ZEMAX simulation over a 0–5 kPa range of liquid pressure. Thus, the resulting images from the developed lens module not only show good contrast and clear quality, but also relatively little distortion, and good relative illumination results are found while tuning the focus.